Dover City Schools website hacked

DOVER The conflict in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians spilled over into the Tuscarawas Valley this week when someone overseas posted graphic pictures and comments about the situation on the website of Dover City Schools.

DOVER The conflict in the Middle East between the Israelis and Palestinians spilled over into the Tuscarawas Valley this week when someone overseas posted graphic pictures and comments about the situation on the website of Dover City Schools.

“On Monday evening, our website was compromised by an anonymous source,” said Superintendent Bob Hamm. “It was hate-filled political comments about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, with disturbing pictures.”

The message was sent by an individual or a group of individuals overseas, Hamm said. The school district is not sure of the exact country.

Several people saw the posting on Monday evening. One of them notified the superintendent, who contacted the district’s technology department. The website was then closed down for the evening.

“What we determined after some investigation was that an individual or group of individuals overseas exploited our externally hosted website,” Hamm said. “It was likely a random occurrence.

“The key thing is that they had no access to any systems maintained by Dover City Schools.”

The website was back up and running by 9 a.m. Tuesday.

“We found the origin of the post and were able to take care of the security leak in the system,” Hamm said.

All parents in the district were notified by telephone Tuesday morning that the website had been taken down, and they were called again when it was up again, he said.

The superintendent explained how the breach occurred.

“What they do is intentionally type out a script and just mass mail it off around the world,” he said. “They look for security leaks and holes in systems. Fortunately, most of the time, that stuff doesn’t get through.”

Most companies and school districts have filters on their accounts to prevent this from happening.